Hi girls! How are you doing? I hope summer is treating you well :) Here it's winter and I'm still unemployed, so I'm using my time to try new things. I've been doing Blogilates since March and I just signed up for a 5k run (my local version of The Color Run). I've been training daily with an app that has a Couch-to-5k program and so far so good! I'm not a runner by any means, not even an active person, so this is a great challenge for me. I'll let you know how it goes!

Anyway, today I wanted to share with you my latest mani that I did on our weekly get-together with my nail polish buddy Ann. She had just gotten her Pueen Encore stamping plates and set of OPI Sheer Tints and we couldn't help but try the leadlight technique right away.

The "leadlight technique" is basically coloring over a stamped image with sheer or jelly polishes. So I started with a white base, two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then stamped over it with Pueen Encore SE04B plate and Konad Black.

I loved how the plate offered different options for small and large nails, depending on what you wanted to achieve, and that I got a different image for each nail but still with a cohesive style. The plated I used was well etched so stamping was a breeze with my usual squishy-firm XL stamper.

Then I filled in the flowers with the shades that came in the Sheer Tints collection. These are like very sheer jellies, which makes them perfect for this techique. I also liked the colors, they reminded me a lot of watercolors (my favorite painting medium). To finish it off I added some dots with OPI Hot & Spicy.

In retrospective, I should have added some topcoat between the stamping and the coloring, as you can see I have some smearing, but I have this problem too with watercolors, so I'll live with it lol.

Also, yes, my nails are super short now. I had a random break during a car trip and had to nub down. Why is it that I always break a nail when I'm not remotely near my nail repairing kit? Seriously, I passed my fingers through my hair and I felt them get caught up and boom, mayor break. I hope you don't mind the shorties for a while.

Have you tried a new technique lately? Would love to hear about them to add to my never ending list of manis to try :) Thanks for reading!

Wow. Sorry guys, I didn't plan on writing 2 of these kind of posts in a row, but I've been uninspired to blog about my nails lately and when I take pictures I hardly find one that I like, let alone 3 for a full blog post for one mani. I also recently broke a nail on a trip and filed them all down, so that's not helping my motivation either :( Anyway I hope you like some of my latest attempts at nailart and I hope to be back with a full post soon.

This one was an experiment with a holo gradient and I used three shades from the Color Club Halo Hues: Eternal Beauty, Miss Bliss and Cosmic Fate. On the accent I stamped with Cici and Sisi #12 with Konad Black and a bit of dotted Nails Inc Baker Street.

Next my Hipster Nails with one of my new Moyou London plates! For the watercolor background I used three shades from the China Glaze Sunsational Jellies collection: You Drive me Coconuts, Are you Jelly? and Keepin' it Teal and followed this tutorial for the effect. Then I stamped with the Moyou Hipster 08 plate and Konad Special White.

Not my best stamping but I'm happy by how completely hipster this mani turned out.

Some freehanded nailart inspired by MrCandiipants using the OPI Euro Centrale collection. For the base I used My Vampire is Buff and for the lines I used the colors that came in the mini kit: Cant' Find My Czechbook, Suzy's Hungary Again, You're such a Budapest and OY-Another Polish Joke (plus a random navy blue we can pretend it's Eurso Euro *wink wink*).

Finally, for this look I used two Picture Polish shades: Imperial and Douceur (from the 2013 Collaborative Shades) and then stamped over them with Essie Penny Talk and Pueen 72 (from the Buffet collection)

And that's it for today's edition of what's been on my nails lately :) I just realized that all of these focus on using several shades of one collection, which is something I like to do, even though I don't usually get a lot of shades from one collection (unless they come in minis).

Do you own a full collection of polish? I do, but only two: the Lime Crime Les Dessert shades (loved those colors) and the China Glaze Sunsational Jellies (because, jellies! lol).